It was hard to know what to say.

Hadn't they said all they had to say to each other?

No, not really. Too much had gone unsaid for much too long, and that was part of the problem.

So many questions.

Why didn't you tell me about it? Any of it?

Did you kill Benoit?

Did you really sacrifice your life to save me, or were you just trying to avoid a painful, humiliating death?

What happened to you? What the hell happened to you, Jen?

The last question was the most painful. Seeing Jenny consumed by her desire for vengeance against the Frog (even now, Gibbs refused to dignify the code name by using the French version). No longer being sure of and confident in a woman he'd once loved so much.

Would he ever have become resigned to her giving up the field to tackle the politics? Giving him up to pursue a more illustrious career?

He'd always thought that sooner or later they'd talk about these things. Figure out if what they'd felt for each other in the past could be resurrected, or needed to be laid to rest. Settle the question one way or the other.

Now it had become another "what if?" that he would wonder about for the rest of his life. All those what ifs... So many. Too many. Now just ashes and memories, never to be resolved.

He placed a hand on her body. Part of him wanted to open the body bag, to see her one last time. One last glimpse of the woman she had been and the woman she'd become. Autopsy. Hadn't Ducky once told him it meant "to see for yourself"? Vance had denied him that chance at the crime scene. Now he was getting in his own way. Again. He was running out of opportunities to see for himself, to face the harsh reality.

But he didn't think he could do it. Didn't think he could bear to see someone else he cared about cold and lifeless. Dead.

Goodbye, Jen. The farewell stuck in his throat.

He couldn't even say goodbye to her properly. The words wouldn't come. The grief was frozen in his gut, a heavy weight. Whatever Jen had been to him, and he to her, however much they'd hurt each other, disagreed, argued, fought... she had still been one of his oldest friends. Someone who'd known him when he was still just human, not yet a legend.

Now she was gone. Another piece of his present swallowed up by an unforgiving past tense. He made himself back away till his butt hit the table behind him.

"Bye, Jenny." It came out as a broken whisper, but at least he had finally said it. She deserved that. She deserved a goodbye.

He straightened up, took one last look.

Then he turned on his heel and left.